New Mexico Professional Athletes

Blake Grupe's path to an NFL starting role ran through waivers — and it just landed him in New York.

The New Mexico alum was claimed off waivers by the Jets from the Indianapolis Colts this week, vaulting him into the starting kicker role heading into the 2026 regular season. The move came directly on the heels of a rough final preseason outing from veteran Jason Sanders, who missed two kicks and prompted head coach Aaron Glenn to publicly signal that the position was up for review.

Glenn didn't wait long to act. The Jets released Sanders to make room for Grupe on the active roster — a swift, decisive shake-up at a position that can quietly sink a season if left unresolved.

Sanders isn't far away

The storyline didn't end with Grupe's arrival. Sanders, a longtime Jets fixture at kicker, was re-signed to the team's practice squad shortly after his release, keeping him in the organization as a safety net. The Jets' front office also continued exploring additional options at the position, per reports — suggesting confidence in Grupe is real, but not yet unconditional. Stanford's Joshua Karty was among the names surfacing in those conversations.

For now, though, it's Grupe's job to lose. The former Lobos standout has now earned an active roster spot heading into Week 1, a milestone that represents the highest-stakes moment of his NFL career.

The rest of New Mexico's NFL contingent

Grupe's breakthrough is the marquee storyline for Lobos alumni this week, but he's not alone in the league. Corey Bojorquez continues to handle punting duties for the Browns, while cornerback D'Angelo Ross is also on Cleveland's roster. Defensive end Dylan Horton is with the Texans, and safety Jerrick Reed II holds a spot with the Titans — a quietly solid NFL footprint for a program not traditionally known as a pipeline school.

For Grupe specifically, the waivers claim represents the kind of opportunity that rarely comes twice. Sanders' quick return to the practice squad ensures the Jets have a familiar fallback, but the pressure is squarely on the new man to make the job his own once the games count.

The Lobo in the Room

Jason Sanders got exactly what he competed for — then made the Jets wonder whether they chose wisely.

The New Mexico alumnus entered training camp in a dead sprint against journeyman Cade York for the Jets' starting kicker job, a vacancy left by the departing Nick Folk. Sanders won the battle cleanly enough: New York waived York on Tuesday, leaving Sanders as the uncontested kicker on the roster. For a moment, it looked like a clean Lobo success story.

Then came the preseason finale.

Sanders missed a 54-yard field goal attempt short and botched an extra-point attempt — two of the most visible miscues a kicker can produce, and in the final audition before real games matter. The performance immediately reopened questions the Jets thought they'd already answered.

Head coach Aaron Glenn tried to keep the temperature down afterward, telling reporters the organization is "not going to panic" about the kicking situation. But the Jets also made clear they would evaluate outside options — a notable hedge for a team that had just formally handed Sanders the job days earlier. Whether that evaluation leads anywhere before the regular season or serves as a quiet warning shot to Sanders remains to be seen.

The broader context matters here. Sanders, a former Miami Dolphin, is an established NFL veteran — not a rookie fighting for a first shot. He has the résumé to survive a rocky preseason night. But kickers live and die by the slimmest margins of organizational patience, and the Jets have now put themselves in the uncomfortable position of either standing pat and hoping the preseason stumble was noise, or scrambling for a replacement with the calendar closing fast.

For New Mexico fans, it's a week that delivered both a high — a Lobo locking down an NFL starting role — and an unsettling coda. Sanders is still the Jets' kicker as of the reporting window. But the rope is shorter than it looked on Tuesday.

No other Lobos — Corey Bojorquez (Browns, P), Dylan Horton (Texans, DE), Jerrick Reed II (Titans, FS), or D'Angelo Ross (Browns, CB) — generated notable activity during the period covered.

The next week of NFL roster decisions will tell the story. If Sanders nails his first regular-season kick, Friday night becomes a footnote. If the Jets make a move, New Mexico's most prominent NFL moment of the summer will have had an ironic ending.